The 30 greatest NBA team rivalries in league history
2. Best NBA rivalries of all-time: Chicago Bulls vs. Detroit Pistons
Early in his career, Michael Jordan showed a level of greatness rarely before seen at the NBA level. He scored in bunches and took home many awards, but team success always eluded him, most notably at the hands of the Detroit Pistons.
The Pistons had come to rule the Eastern Conference with their unrelenting physical punishment on the basketball court. As great as Jordan was, he alone couldn’t tip the scales in favor of the Chicago Bulls with the beating he took on a nightly basis, losing out to the Bad Boys in three consecutive postseasons.
When matched up against Chicago, the Pistons’ method was simple: They believed success for the Bulls began and ended with Jordan. That meant a psychotic level of pressure whether he had the ball or not along with numerous mid-air altercations that put Jordan on his backside.
As one would imagine, the Bulls took exception towards watching their superstar take a beating and retaliated as best they could. It didn’t help that they couldn’t manage to get over the hump come playoff time. Detroit had their number during three straight NBA Finals appearances, but its run would only last so long with each series extending an extra game.
Chicago had just narrowly avoided victory in the 1990 Eastern Conference Finals after Scottie Pippen dealt with a migraine for the entirety of Game 7. The following year, the tables flipped on their heads. Jordan was stronger and the Bulls more cohesive, leading to a clean sweep of Detroit to advance to their first of six NBA Finals appearances for the decade.
As the clock ticked down on that Game 4 victory, the Pistons walked past Chicago’s bench without so much as a sliver of eye contact. It fit their Bad Boy persona and the Bulls weren’t surprised. They’d never respected Detroit even after two titles, always labeling them a dirty team that operated outside the fundamentals of the game.
Jordan’s hatred of the Pistons kept Isiah Thomas off the US Olympic “Dream Team”, as Detroit’s run came to a screeching halt. There was no mutual admiration or respect, just one team that slowly worked towards taking down a long-standing rival.